Why Every Progressive Should Be An Independent Voter

This is the seventh post in a series by Independent Voters of America founder Bill Hillsman. We’re calling it the “Why Be Independent?” series, and will be posting POV on why a number of typically aggregated groups like women, seniors, people under the age of 40… why all should be independent voters. This post is crossposted at Huffington Post.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” — George Bernard Shaw

Let’s be unreasonable here.

Progressives — and many others who bought into Barack Obama’s message of hope and change in 2008 — have been sorely disappointed to find out he was little more than the classic liberal or centrist Democrat he’s always been. If you’re a political progressive, you’ve been pushing a boulder uphill in the Democratic Party for a long, long time. And just as you think you’re getting close to real change and real progress, the boulder rolls back down the hill again.

Face it: the Democratic Party treats progressives the way the Republican Party treats Christian conservatives. The party leaders (pretend to) listen to you, give you a little lip service and then go back behind closed doors and ignore you.

When deciding what to do about progressive issues and concerns, the Democratic Party leaders’ mantra is six short words: “Where else are they gonna go?” Meaning you either hold your nose and vote for a badly flawed Democratic candidate, or you just stay home.

How are those options working for you? Maybe it would be better to stop trying to make your case to people who have done nothing but pretend to listen to you for over 40 years, and instead work to persuade voters who are not only persuadable, but who decide every close election: Independent swing voters.

2 Responses

Both parties are going from the extreme ends of their ideologies. I’d rather the extreme Left and Right be factored out of the political process, and the moderates allowed once again to run things. Big Money and Super PAC’s should be made illegal.Citizens United and ALEC ought to be outlawed.